Agnosticism and the Church - Part III

If you haven't read the posts and subsequent comments at the first two writings on this subject, go here and here. Then read this one. Or, hey, just read this one (which technically doesn't address agnosticism).

I'm reading a book called Not the Religious Type: Confessions of a Turncoat Atheist, by Dave Schmelzer (his name links to his blog), and I'm loving it. Schmelzer's writing style is a bit like C. S. Lewis' in phrasing and in general wit, and I wonder if he's British, although he lives in Boston. The following paragraph is from the chapter entitled "I'm Better Than You":

I meet plenty of people who, as was true in my case, want God if he's out there to be found. But I never meet anybody who wants religion. Or who wants the right belief, as if they're walking around banging their foreheads in fear that maybe they're believing the wrong things. Or someone who wants to finally be a good person, as opposed to the evil-hearted conniver he or she has been.

I can't sum up the book, but I can say that until we're exhibiting God's internally-based love that He's willing and able to give us (that may sound cheesy, but it's accurate), we can't help pushing the mentality that essentially says, "Hey, you really need to belong to this religion we're in, because we're better than you and you ought to be like us." If we present our message this way (and if we believe that), people are going to think we're absolutely nuts!

Jesus said to His disciples, "Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." (John 13:35, NLT) Not by how pious we are, how many rules we're able to follow, who we vote for, or how neat and clean our worldview is. But by how much we love one another. That love will spill over into everything we do because it's where our identity is founded.

Posted in: Christianity, The Church, Thinking